


Hidden Behind the Lens

by PeripateticAO3



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cameras, Comedy, Crack, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Homophobic Language, M/M, Newspapers, Slurs, maybe smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 12:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14056899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeripateticAO3/pseuds/PeripateticAO3
Summary: Byun Baekhyun loved to learn about people’s lives. His passion for knowing secrets and storing them in his mind like folders inside a drawer was impossible to comprehend for many. This is why it wasn’t a surprise to Baekhyun’s parents when they discovered that their son was part of the school’s newspaper team. It wasn’t gossiping, he liked to say, more of an eloquent way to distinguish the truth from the false, and of course making everyone else aware of it. The boy’s best friend was his small Canon camera and whenever he had the chance he took it out of his bag to snap a picture or two of the latest newspaper worthy thing he could write about. Baekhyun was a true journalist, one that really got into his work and tried his hardest to make it perfect.That’s why when he was told to make an article about an ”upcoming rising star” he chose non-other than Park Chanyeol from the school’s basketball team, unaware of how homophobic the latter was.





	Hidden Behind the Lens

**Author's Note:**

> Fifth story that I cross-post from AFF and the last one that actually has any chapters!! I wrote this single chapter back in 2015 and I haven't updated since then (I'M A HORRIBLE PERSON I KNOW), but I won't leave any of my stories behind I promise! I just have so fluffin' many that I kinda write them all at once and then nothing and arghhhhhhhh 
> 
> Anyhow, don't expect too much out of this (mostly bc my writing wasn't very good back then) and I'm probably not gonna update it anytime soon :(

”How’s the lunch article going, Sunwoo?”

 

”Eh… I thought I would make it about the students’ opinion on the school’s food…” 

 

”Address me properly when you talk to me Cha Sunwoo.” 

 

”Sorry Mrs. Geum… It won’t happen again, I promise.” 

 

Mrs. Geum nodded and looked around the little room they were in. A roundtable was centered in the middle and there were computers on the sides. There was a Smart Board behind the teacher’s back coupled to one of the computers. Baekhyun was scribbling down ideas on a notebook to his article, scratching them with a pen later on. 

 

_The daily life of the principal? No one would read that._

 

_Teachers as movies? Now that would be really awkward…_

 

_Hottest girl in school? That is pretty sexist Baekhyun, good job._

 

_Hottest boy in school? No need to show off your gayness to everyone._

 

_An interview with the school’s mascot? Boring…_

 

_Gosh, what is wrong with me today? Where has my inspiration gone? Maybe I should just make a poll about the King and Queen of the yea-_

 

”Byun Baekhyun!” Mrs Geum shouted and hit her pointer right in front of Baekhyun’s nose. ”Are you listening?” 

 

Baekhyun looked up to see her stern face judging him hard. It wasn’t like she was one of the mean teacher’s of the school, but she could be frightening when she intended to. Baekhyun gulped and nodded hurriedly. 

 

”What’s your article going to be about?” 

 

”I-I don’t know Mrs Geum…” 

 

”Good. I was thinking you could make an article _I_ prepared.”  

 

Baekhyun looked around to see if she wasn’t talking to anyone else. 

 

”I can?”

 

”It’s part of the assignment of the month Baekhyun, and one of you has to write it.” 

 

”O-okay, what should I write about?” 

 

Mrs. Geum smiled and put her pointer down. She lifted her hands in a circling motion, like she was doing two rainbows. 

 

”Seongsan High School’s new upcoming rising star!” Mrs. Geum said in dreamlike tone. 

 

”Upcoming rising star? But Mrs Geum, all the famous people come from either Seoul or Gangnam, not Daegu…” Baekhyun said incisively. 

 

”That’s not true at all. Moon Chaewon comes from Daegu.” 

 

”But Mrs Geum, that’s one out of 2.5 million people.” 

 

”I’m sure there are more celebrities in this world that come from Daegu, Baekhyun.” 

 

But Baekhyun wasn’t so sure about that, nonetheless he accepted the task with no other choice than to fulfill it in time. 

 

 

ııı|ı|ı|ı|ııı

 

 

”One month… I have one month to find a kid good enough to write about… But who?” The Canon camera in front of Baekhyun wasn’t going to answer him anytime soon, even if he kept talking to it. 

 

”Damn it!” He shouted under his breath, not loud enough for the students around him to hear it. The dining room was, as always, loud enough to cover his little conversations with the non-living object. 

 

Even if he was sitting alone, eating his lunch not so quietly, he wasn’t sad or somber. Baekhyun was rather content that people hadn’t really started messing with him for wearing his glasses or for the fact that he often talked to his only real friend, which depressingly was his favorite camera. Besides, he wasn’t the only one sitting alone in the dining room. Another guy, blonde and pretty tall, always sat by himself with his earphones on his ears, ignoring everyone else. He was kind of an outsider and definitely not interesting enough to write about in Baekhyun’s opinion. 

 

”This is going to be hard…” Baekhyun sighed. 

 

”Don’t tell me you’re jacking yourself off under there.” A guy appeared with his tray, wide eyes looking at him. 

 

”Yah, Jung Daehyun! Are you trying to start a rumor, or what? I wasn’t doing anything!” 

 

”As usual.” Daehyun sat down in front of Baekhyun with a chuckle. ”When are you going to stop intruding in others’ privet lives and start one yourself with someone? You do know that girls won’t ask you out if you continue to talk to that stupid camera, right?” 

 

”Hey!”

 

”I’m telling the truth.” 

 

_I’m not interested in your truth…_

 

Baekhyun shrugged him off with some simple words and ate his own food silently, thinking through every single student in the school that could be remotely important for the future society. 

 

 

_Your search -_ **_Students in Seongsan High School that could make it big in the celebrity world_ ** _\- did not match any documents or files inside your head._

_Suggestions:_

_•    Make sure that the city where the school is located is famous._

_•    Try different schools._

_•    Try more famous schools._

_•    Try university students._

 

 

”This is not working…” Baekhyun looked at his food disappointed.

 

”What is not working?” Daehyun asked curiously after eating a spoonful of his soybean sprout soup. 

 

”The stupid article I have to do for the newspaper. Mrs. Geum had the _honor_ of considering _me_ to write her idea, and it’s so frustrating!” 

 

”Well, you should feel _honored_. Her ideas are always the ones that appear on the front page.” 

 

Baekhyun shot his head up to look at him incredulously. 

 

”What?!” 

 

”I thought you knew that…” 

 

”No, I didn’t! I just joined the team, how am I supposed to know that?!” 

 

Daehyun laughed at Baekhyun sudden depressed look while the other boy was just a drop from ripping his hair out of his head.  

 

”What’s it about?” The younger boy’s, taking another spoonful of his soup to his mouth, asked curiously. 

 

”The article?” Baekhyun sighed with just the thought of it. ”I have to write about a student, here, in this school.” He pointed to the students in the room to clarify who he meant. ”That could be the next _upcoming rising star_.” And finished by resting his head on his hand.

 

”Why not take someone from the soccer team? Hasn’t the leader like tons of experience?”

 

”The soccer team’s captain? Yeah, basically he earned his experience from the increasing years of repeating his senior year. What is he now, 25 or something?” 

 

”He’s only 20 hyung… And he has repeated his last year twice, not fifty. I’m pretty sure he’ll graduate this year.” 

 

”Yeah, well, still too many years to even consider him.” 

 

”What about the basketball team? The captain is like in our age and he hasn’t once repeated a school year. His grades are told to be pretty good too.”

 

Baekhyun straightened up slowly and arched an eyebrow, thinking through his other options; which were none. 

 

”That could work…” The boy said with an increasingly big smile, creating a bubbly laugh from Daehyun. 

 

”Yeah, it could.” 

 

Suddenly Baekhyun stood up and took his dear camera, startling the other guy. 

 

”Meet me at the gymnasium after school!” 

 

”What? Why?” Daehyun answered with his mouth full, but the other had already scurried off. The younger boy shook his head slowly, sighing and resting his head on his hand like Baekhyun had done before. ”Why does he always do that?”

 

 

ııı|ı|ı|ı|ııı

 

 

”Baek, what are we doing here? We can’t be here when they have practice!” Daehyun whispered. 

 

”Yes, we can! I have a license for it!” Baekhyun answered whispering not so discreet. 

 

”Then why are we hiding behind the bleachers?!” 

 

The color blue was surrounding them, steel bars holding up the seats just above their heads and the basketball field being seen from far away.

 

”Eh… That’s not important. Focus on the mission, okay?” Baekhyun pointed at the boys running around with yellow t-shirts, each having a number on their back. 

 

”What mission?! You practically dragged me here without any explanation!” Daehyun whispered in a shouting tone. 

 

”Who’s the team captain?” Baekhyun asked, totally ignoring his friend. 

 

”You’re kidding me, right?” Daehyun said as he realized why he had been forced to join Baekhyun’s search for answers. ”Did you literarily drag me here to show-”

 

”Oh, just say it.” Baekhyun said after rolling his eyes unintentionally. 

 

”Couldn’t you just have looked in the yearbook?!” Daehyun was trying to keep his calm, thinking through everything he could’ve done instead of stalking the basketball team during their practice.

 

”For God’s sake stop whining and tell me!” 

 

Daehyun sighed and pointed. ”It’s him.” 

 

”Who?” Baekhyun looked where the finger was pointing, but the players were constantly moving. 

 

”The tall one over there with the brownish hair.” Daehyun said and took Baekhyun’s finger, pointing at said boy. 

 

”Oh… _Oh_ …” Baekhyun gulped when he saw the guy sweating as he made a goal. ”He’s really hot…” He whispered to himself. 

 

”What?”

 

”What?” 

 

Baekhyun tore his eyes from the really good-looking team captain to look almost horrified when he noticed Daehyun’s eyes were cutting him in half to know how his insides looked like. Daehyun narrowed his eyes slightly as he inspected him with his sight, not quite sure of what he had heard. Baekhyun was sweating nervously, fidgeting with his fingers and looking over his shoulder to see if anyone else heard what he said, not that there was anyone nearby but just in case. Daehyun, fortunately, shook his head and ignored his growing suspicions. 

 

”Well, can I go now? This is getting awkward.” Daehyun broke their sudden pregnant silence, even though the screams from the players had reached their ears all the time, after clearing his throat.

 

”Uh… Yeah, yeah! I- um… Yes, that sounds like a good idea. I’ll just… yeah.” Baekhyun said nervously, not even looking at the other in the eye.

 

”Good. I’ll leave you to it then.” 

 

Daehyun stood up with some difficulty and wriggled himself out of the little corner they’d been hiding. He waved his hand silently and Baekhyun immediately answered with the same gesture, exhaling deeply after. 

 

_That was really close…_

 

After convincing himself that everything was fine, and that Daehyun didn’t think any inappropriate things, Baekhyun decided to go a little bit further. He opened his camera bag and took out his precious Canon, caressing it for just a split second before realizing that normal people thought that was, as obvious as it was, very weird of him. He sighed, feeling a little bit sad over how society normally would look at him.

 

_Weirdo._

 

_Loser._

 

_Geek._

 

_Faggot…_

 

The last one hurt the most. 

 

Baekhyun didn’t care what people thought of him. He just didn’t want them to know that he was, to put it in ’better words’, a non-straight guy. Not in the context where when he did push-ups he looked like dangling spaghetti.

 

Baekhyun swung his brown hair to the side by his hand to keep it out of his eyes with a sigh. He looked down at his camera again and smiled. It wasn’t much, but it was the most trustworthy friend he had. 

 

”Let’s go!” He said encouragingly to himself, fist up in the air to make him look more determinate. 

 

Crawling, half running, stepping on his own feet; that’s how he got out of his and the other boy’s hiding spot, not really understanding how Daehyun had made it look so easy. He huffed, tired and realizing that his physical condition wasn’t one of the best ones. 

 

”Maybe I should go to the gym more often.” Baekhyun said catching his own breath. 

 

Tiptoeing his way to the front, Baekhyun made himself invisible to the other boys in the room. He took a seat on the bleachers, hiding his face behind the camera. His body was curled up like a ball in such way that he was still able to snap a couple of pictures, without the flash of course, but still not visible enough for any of the players to noticed him. Baekhyun grinned shamelessly when he took a good picture of the team captain. 

 

_He’s definitely an 8…_

 

And just as Baekhyun was trying to take photos of the tall male from different, very awkward, angles and positions, the latter lifted up his shirt to brush away the sweat dripping from his forehead and in consequence revealing his firm, defined, _glorious_ , abdominal muscles. 

 

_Oh Lord have mercy on me…_

 

Baekhyun gulped, his hands slightly shaking and his breath hitching. Warmth was radiating from his body and he felt the sweat starting to form on his back. He wasn't frozen, although it looked like it, he was the opposite, too bothered to feel comfortable in his clothes anymore. 

 

_This project will kill me._

 

A guy that hot and that close to Baekhyun was never a good idea, especially when he had a picture of his well-built abs displaying on the screen of his camera just a few inches away from his face. He carefully looked at the picture he had taken, admiring how beautiful a human body could look like and almost drooled over just that photo. He literally had to slap himself to get out of the trance he was in, which caused the coach to turn his head and notice a little guy with his shirt over his knees, a rather big camera covering his almost already covered face by his glasses and a strange aura of mixed feelings radiating from him.

 

”Hey, you!” A dark voice said, a finger pointing at the bleachers. 

 

Baekhyun shot his head up when he heard the whistle stop the game and saw how a really tall, blonde guy with a broken eyebrow approached him not looking very amused. His eyes widened and he stood up immediately, fixing his shirt and hiding his camera behind his back. 

 

”What are you doing here? Don’t you know that this is a privet practice?” The coach said with a harsh tone.

 

”I-” 

 

”This room is reserved for the team, and only the team, from 4PM to 6PM, you have no right to be here if you’re not one of the players.” 

 

”But I’m-”

 

”You could be a spy working for another school and we wouldn’t know!” 

 

The tall male was practically over Baekhyun at that point, the shorter shrinking in size, pride and answers. Sitting down slowly he felt so ashamed of what he had done. Everyone would know by tomorrow, even his parents. Baekhyun felt like the most horrible human being on the planet and really thought he would be severely punished by the crime he’d made. 

 

”What’s going on here?” 

 

A deep, raspy, _sexy_ voice interfered the continuous harsh words that the coach was spitting out at Baekhyun. The owner of the voice pushed the adult away from him, not meaningfully but not gentle either. 

 

”This punk here is selling our moves to our rivals!” The coach’s finger was pointing directly at Baekhyun. The tall brunette that got in the way before was looking over the older’s shoulder, raising an eyebrow at the shorter boy.

 

”No, no, I swear I wasn’t!” Baekhyun defended. 

 

”Sure you weren’t.” The coach huffed and whispered something to the leader, the other whispered something back, patting the older’s shoulder and tugged him to leave. It took a couple of seconds but in the end the coach nodded with a sigh, going back to the field to yell at the other players for just sitting down doing nothing. 

 

The tall brunette, looking a little bit hesitant at first, sat down on the seat next to the one on Baekhyun’s right, which was two seats away in other words. 

 

”So…” 

 

Journalist Byun had heard many voices throughout his years of interviewing people to his own little researches. All from high-pitched girlish screams that sounded like a dog was being tortured to deep as the ocean dark, really masculine whispers. But never, not even once, had he been already attracted to a person with just the sound of the person’s voice. Apart from the fact that the guy was really, _really_ , tall and that he was in a very well physical state, his voice made Baekhyun’s legs treble, which wasn’t in his favor as he had to explain why he’d ended up in that situation in the first place. 

 

”Do you mind explaining what you were doing here?” 

 

_Fuck, he’s nothing under a 10…_

 

”I work for the school’s newspaper.” Baekhyun whispered, his vocal cords unable to make a louder sound.

 

”What? Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.” The guy said, moving his body a little bit closer to Baekhyun’s.

 

_On the scale of 1-5…_

 

”I’m-” He cleared his throat awkwardly, holding his camera like his life depended on it. ”I am a part of the crew that takes care of the school’s newspaper.” 

 

”Oh, so you’re a journalist?” The team captain said, raising his eyebrows in a pleasant surprise.

 

”Y-yes…” It was inevitable to prevent his voice from flailing, but it didn’t seem to bother the other male. 

 

”Are you done or not?! You still have to practice Yeol!” The coach yelled from the distance. 

 

”One sec coach!” _Yeol_ answered, turning his upper body to the side to see the older one and in consequence revealing a little bit of his waist for Baekhyun to see. 

 

_Is 20 an option?_

 

”Now, what is a journalist doing in the gymnasium during the basketball team’s practice?” He said, facing Baekhyun again.

 

The arch that the hot guy made with his left eyebrow was so distracting that it took a moment for Baekhyun to react at the question. 

 

”I-I am here for… Eh… You?” His awkward smile must have been quite noticeable as the other guy looked kind of creeped out. 

 

”Me?” 

 

Baekhyun inhaled deeply, closing his eyes briefly as he tried to calm down. 

 

”I’m in charge of writing an article about someone who I think will have a bright future in the period of a month.” 

 

”And you chose me?” 

 

”Y-yeah…” 

 

”That’s very… Uhm… I appreciate the offer but-”

 

”Great!” Baekhyun shouted as he stood up with a clap of his hands. 

 

”But I don’t-” 

 

”Meet me tomorrow then!” Baekhyun took his camera and headed to the exit, still facing the hot leader. ”During lunch!” And ran away leaving the other standing there. 

 

But after just some seconds he realized that he didn’t really know the guy’s name. He stopped in his tracks and ran back, finding the guy still standing where he left him. 

 

”I forgot to ask you about your name.” Baekhyun stated with small puffs of air. The other boy looked at him perplexed, but nonetheless he answered.

 

”Chanyeol.” 

 

”Wonderful. See you tomorrow!” Baekhyun said as he ran away again.

 

”Wa-wait!” Chanyeol shouted, making the shorter stop again and run back.

 

”Yes?” Baekhyun said with his breath uneven from the unnatural about of exercise he was doing lately.

 

”It’s _Park_ Chanyeol.” He said, the corner of his lips turning upwards and his eyes forming beautiful crinkles. 

 

_God, that smile…_

 

Baekhyun ran away without any plans of returning, his brain warning him about a possible heart attack that might happen if he stayed any longer.

 


End file.
